The U.S. Department of Education is proposing significant changes to the federal requirements governing accrediting agencies, including the elimination of two longstanding requirements related to an agency’s operating history and use of peer review.
A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published August 20 would revise 34 CFR Part 602, which governs the Secretary’s recognition of accrediting agencies, as part of the Department’s implementation of Executive Order 14279, “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education.” The public comment period closes September 21.
The proposal is based on the Department’s view that accreditation has operated for roughly a century as a system with limited competition, in which a relatively small number of established agencies have maintained longstanding relationships with institutions and faced limited incentives to change their approaches. The Department proposes to increase competition by making it easier for new accrediting agencies to seek federal recognition, allowing institutions greater flexibility to change accreditors, and removing procedural requirements that can make entry into the accreditation market more difficult.
The Department’s regulatory impact analysis, however, acknowledges that it does not have sufficient data to establish whether increased competition among accrediting agencies will produce the anticipated improvements in quality.
Two proposed changes are particularly notable because they would remove requirements that currently provide information about an accrediting agency’s capacity and approach before the agency receives federal recognition.
The first is the two-year operating requirement. Under current regulations, a new accrediting agency must have operated for at least two years, including making accreditation decisions, before the Department will consider recognizing it. The proposed rule would eliminate that requirement. Under the proposal, an agency could seek recognition once at least one institution has applied for accreditation, without first having to demonstrate a two-year record of accreditation decisions.
The Department characterizes the existing requirement as an unnecessary barrier to entry. The two-year period nevertheless provides an opportunity to evaluate whether a new agency has developed and applied standards in making actual accreditation decisions before the federal government recognizes that agency for purposes of Title IV participation.
The second change concerns peer review. Current regulations include the use of peer review in the definition of an accrediting agency, reflecting the longstanding practice of having faculty and administrators from other institutions participate in the evaluation of their peers. The proposed rule would make peer review optional.
During negotiated rulemaking, participants argued that certain aspects of institutional evaluation may benefit from subject-matter experts who are not necessarily academic peers. The proposed change would allow agencies greater flexibility in determining who conducts evaluations, including the possibility of models that rely entirely on outside evaluators rather than faculty and administrators from peer institutions.
Peer review has historically served as a central component of accreditation’s self-regulatory structure, distinguishing the process from both direct government oversight and market-based certification. Eliminating the requirement would not prevent an accrediting agency from using peer review, but it would no longer be a regulatory requirement for an agency seeking recognition.
The changes to the two-year requirement and peer review would occur alongside provisions intended to make it easier for institutions to change accrediting agencies. The proposal also places greater emphasis on outcomes-based measures, including completion rates, licensure pass rates and “economic returns,” as indicators of institutional quality.
Whether those outcomes measures can identify problems at institutions as early as mechanisms such as a demonstrated record of accreditation decisions or peer evaluation is not yet established. The Department’s own analysis identifies gaps in the available data concerning the relationship between increased competition among accreditors and institutional quality.
Comments are open through September 21 at regulations.gov, Docket ID ED-2025-OPE-1042.
